Soccer Moves Review

Fuzzy Logic is a South African-based iOS and Android development team comprised of former Eidos, Disney and Eurocom developers. Fuzzy Logic has released Soccer Moves, which would obviously hint that this title would act as a sports title. Surprisingly, Fuzzy Logic has crossed us all up and has funneled the traditional soccer match into something much simpler yet more refined, a puzzler. So let's see if Soccer Moves lives up to its namesake and moves into a clear shot of the goal box.

Indeed, Soccer Moves acts as a puzzle title with soccer based at its core. You get to play with a limited number of other children and must pass and navigate around the opposing team's defenders so that you get a kick the ball into the goal without being blocked. The defenders' will steal the ball or tackle your players if you were to enter their zones of defense. But you are allowed a limited number or passes and movements in order to safely navigate a player into getting an unhindered shot. This is where the puzzle mechanics of Soccer Moves come into play.

Like most puzzle-based iOS titles, Soccer Moves is comprised of dozens of individual puzzles where you must safely navigate the ball through the field and reach the goal. Don't worry about scores or playing defense, Soccer Moves only has you playing offense. You start off with the ball on the sideline with a number of defenders spread throughout the field. Each round traditionally gives you only two players to work with and a limited amount of character movements and passes. In other words, you must try to score using as few turns as possible while avoiding the defenders spread throughout the field.

This concept seems simple at first, until Soccer Moves starts putting multiple defenders on the field and mixing in special defenders such as the goalie or the huge defender (whose tackles cover a larger area but has a smaller area of ball-interception). This forces you into playing strategically, where your players must avoid the large defenders at all cost but can kick the ball by them freely. This keeps you on your toes and makes it feel as if no round of Soccer Moves plays the same due to the varying degree of defenders on the screen each time.

The controls of Soccer Moves are quite simple. You tap and drag one of your characters you would like to move, which uses up one of your movement counters. And you can simply click drag your finger along the field as to where you would like your player to pass the ball. Soccer Moves gives you the courtesy of highlighting the areas where the ball would land and where your player would stop, which makes planning your positions and ball movement a lot easier.

Scoring is done by tapping and holding onto the goal box. Once you hold your finger on the goal box, the camera will rotate to behind the person with the ball and your character will be able to kick the ball towards the goal. During this time, you are free to choose a spot in the net to kick towards to, and you must hold your finger on the screen in order to charge up the power of your kick. Letting go with the bar filled results in a gold star bonus and a decreased chance of anyone blocking the kick.

Unfortunately, there are a couple interface issues which I hope get ironed out in future patches. In particular, the ability to cancel your plans and redo your directions are tough to accomplish. I constantly found myself restarting the round simply because of a misplaced pass. Once your pass line is drawn, that's it. Also, the passes themselves are extremely short in terms of how far you can pass. This forces you into be thorough in your strategy.

Soccer Moves is an efficient puzzle-based iOS title, with the sport of soccer simply being its delivery system. There are plenty of bonuses to unlock via the in-game currency, such as dribbling, curve shots, outfits and temporary buffs, but these are all just a bonus in terms of Soccer Moves' core gameplay. The great thing is that Fuzzy Logic did not attempt to force any type of paid "freemium" content onto the player, the upgrades and bonuses are simply unlocked from playing Soccer Moves efficiently. Soccer Moves provides a legitimate puzzle experience. If you are a fan of puzzle titles and soccer, Soccer Moves is for you. If you have no care for kicking a ball on grass and only care for puzzle titles, Soccer Moves is still an excellent free-to-play iOS title worthy of your time.